关键审计事项披露与非机会主义盈余管理——基于两种盈余管理方式转换视角的研究

Key Audit Matters Disclosure and Non-opportunistic Earnings Management:From the Perspective of the Shift between Two Earnings Management Methods

利用同时在内地和香港上市的“A+H”股公司2017年率先披露关键审计事项的制度背景,采用倾向性得分匹配(PSM)与双重差分回归(DID)相结合的方法检验关键审计事项披露对盈余管理动机的影响。研究发现,关键审计事项披露提高了真实盈余管理与未来盈余的相关性,表明关键审计事项的披露增强了真实盈余管理传递未来盈余信息的非机会主义动机。进一步研究表明,这一效应主要存在于审计质量较低、内部控制较弱的公司中;而且当关键审计事项描述段涉及应收账款减值和坏账准备、应对段涉及估值专家工作、公司净营运资产较低时,这一效应更显著。这表明关键审计事项的披露可能通过改善审计质量和内部控制水平、限制应计盈余管理空间而增强真实盈余管理的非机会主义动机。

The classical literature states that earnings management contains opportunistic incentives as well as non opportunistic incentives.However,there is little research shedding light on the non opportunistic earnings management in China.We exploit the institutional background that“A+H”share companies listed in both the Mainland and Hong Kong firstly discloses key audit matters in 2017,and adopt Difference in Difference(DID)together with Propensity Score Matching(PSM)methods to test the impact of key audit matters disclosure on earnings management incentives.The research finds that the disclosure of key audit matters improves the correlation between real earnings management and future earnings,indicating that the disclosure of key audit matters constrains the opportunistic incentives of real earnings management and strengthens its non opportunistic incentives.Further analyses show that this effect mainly exists in the companies with low audit quality,weak internal control.Additionally,this effect is more pronounced when the descriptive paragraph involves impairment and allowance for receivables,the solution paragraph involves the usage of the work of valuation expert to deal with key audit matters,or a firm’s level of net operating assets is low.These results indicate that the disclosure of key audit matters may enhance the non opportunistic incentives of real earnings management by improving audit quality and internal control level and limiting accrual earnings management.